
Lincolniana* 



Lincoln 




EjfS^ 



Class. 

Book 

GopightN" L?- 



4 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Lincolniana* 



j-o 



U 



^1 



^^ 



■ N 



,>^ 



£^ A, £\ r* f* 



^ 



"0 



ft) 




Copyright 19 13, 

by 
H. Alfred Fowler. 



Preface* 

It was originally intended to publish this work 
under the title '^Lincolniana Book-plates/^ making 
of it a little brochure of interest to collectors of book- 
plates, depicting the several book-plates bearing port- 
raits of Lincoln or other designs appropriate for book- 
plates to be used in books relating to him* 

But it was found impossible to adequately des- 
cribe the book-plates without going into the details 
of the collections they were used to mark; & these 
details were found to be of as much if not more int- 
erest than the book-plates themselves* 

And so it was decided to turn the project into 
a little volume on Lincolniana; which has been 
done, with the kind assistance of Messrs* Charles 
W* McLellan, Judd Stewart and J* B* Oakleaf, all 
veteran collectors of Lincolniana, who have each 
contributed a little paper on the subject* 

There has been no effort to cover the field of 
'^Lincolniana book-plates/' the few illustrations ap- 
pearing having been chosen simply with a view to 
appropriate decoration, which will account for the 
apparent, but thus not real neglect of many inter- 
esting Lincolniana book-plates* H* A* F* 



Collectors and Collectings 

Since what follows is written solely to oblige 
a man with a hobby, I claim the privilege of sim- 
ply suggesting instead of detailing my ideas and, 
further, the privilege of starting at the end of the 
story instead of at the beginning* 

The book-plate for my Lincoln library is the 
final outcome of gratifying an inherited desire for 
collecting, given to me, I am sure, by my dear old 
mother who was always saving papers or clippings 
of interest* From her also I think that I inherited 
the desire to give pleasure to others (an inheritance 
that has not been cultivated beyond a reasonable 
measure, however) and so I comply with a brother 
hobbyist^s request for a few words to accompany 
my Lincoln book-plate* 

In August 1888, desiring to present to my em- 
ployer, August R* Meyer of Kansas City, a book 
that would be unique and ^^different,^^ I started to 
extra-illustrate Arnold^s ^^Life of Lincoln,^^ think- 
ing that I would give it to him Christmas, but, be- 
coming interested, I deferred giving it until it was 
as complete as my crude notions demanded* 

In J 889 1 endeavored to complete that task but 



could find no satisfactory portrait of General Jim 
Lane of Kansas^ Finally, in 1890, the volumes were 
completed and save a mistake made by the binder 
the work was satisfactory and the presentation made 
on Qiristmas Day of that year^ My interest in Lin- 
coln had been aroused and I started out ^'to get, to 
have, and to hoW all I could gather in the way of 
books and pamphlets about him# 

Being transferred, in 1 90 1, from the West to 
the East where second-hand book-stores ^Mo abound 
more abundantly^^ I found myself led on & on buy- 
ing books, pamphlets, medals, sheet music, photo- 
graphs, autograph letters, anything and everything 
to gratify the one desire to have and to own all that 
was possible for man to possess regarding the most 
heroic figure of the age* When I found it necessary, 
in order to effect an exchange with a State Histor- 
ical Society, to have a bill passed by the legislature 
of the state, I, with the help of good friends, pro- 
ceeded to have the bill passed and added one more 
item to my collection* 

Meeting, by chance on a train, a man who 
owned a pamphlet wanted I spent three years in an 
effort to obtain and preserve the printed copy of a 
sermon on Lincoln's death* To obtain a play print- 



ed in West Creek, Virginia, in 1867, 1 located the 
author in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and finally got the 
volume^ I have called into service, not once but 
many times, the Consular Service of the United 
States in securing foreign items of interest* And now 
that I publish the secret, my friendly competitors 
who see this will probably ^^make it hot'^ for U» S» 
Consuls* 

But, after all, the pleasure of pursuit and ac- 
quisition is of no worth compared to the friendship 
formed through my collecting* I cannot name one 
without offending others but what a pleasure it is 
to receive, some morning when business is all as- 
kew, a letter from a ^^hated rivaF^ congratulating 
one on a new acquisition or, as sometimes happens, 
finding in the mail with the compliments of some 
other collector (^^hated rivar^) an item that you 
want and have despaired of getting! 

My advice, to my sons and to all of the sons 
of men, is COLLECT* Be a collector! One man col- 
lected playing cards; picking cards up on the street, 
he was trying to collect a complete deck* He still 
lacked the deuce of hearts and the five of diamonds 
when I last heard of his collection but I hope, and 
am sure that all collectors join me in hope, that he 



will find these two cards^ face up, some morning 
as he starts downtown* When he does find them 
he will sigh to think that his collection is complete 
but will go on collecting something else and will be 
as happy as before* 

Judd Stewart* 



Lincolniana* 

Walking: up Broadway one evemng in the 80's 
with my son^ we were tempted by a flaring light 
over a book-stand to examine the volumes offered* 
Among them we discovered the three volume life 
of Lincoln by William H* Herndon* I had known 
both Mr* "Lincoln and Mr* Herndon in the late 50's 
when I lived in Springfield^ Illinois; had transacted 
business with Mr* Lincoln over the counter of the 
Ridgely Bank where I was clerk; had greeted him 
(Constantly at the little social gatherings at his home 
and at the homes of others; and had had frequent 
conversations with Mr* Herndon on the two sub- 
jects then interesting to him: ^^Theodore Parker & 
his Beliefs'^ and ^^Temperance*^^ 

The purchase of these books that evening was 
the commencement of my interest in Lincolniana^ 
although it was not until the year 1900 that I be- 
gan collecting in earnest* For some time I confined 
myself to engravings and lithographs, which seem- 
ed innumerable and embraced the patriotic & car- 
icature pictures of the Civil War* 

Through Mr* A* S* Clark, then in Fulton 
Street, I became interested in magazine articles on 



Lincoln and collected a fine lot which I had nicely 
bound* From Mr* Clarkl also obtained Judge Fish's 
first Bibliography of Lincoln Literature, and with 
this as a guide I then began the effort to complete 
his list* Judge Fish had collected such a number of 
books and pamphlets as to make him among the 
first of our collectors* Later I met Major William H* 
Lambert and Mr* Judd Stewart, and the formation 
of the Lincoln Fellowship brought us closer togeth- 
er, and happily joined by Mr* J* B* Oakleaf, we 
were soon engaged in an endeavor to obtain every- 
thing relating to Lincoln, helping one another until 
our accumulations reached the thousands* 

During all this time the letters, documents & 
those tiny cards which Mr* Lincoln constantly used 
to convey his messages, were of great interest to me 
as expressing the development of the life of this great 
man* The earliest specimen of his writing that I ob- 
tained was a page of his copy-book written in 1826, 
when he was J 7 years of age; and from 1838 to 
1865, twenty-seven years, I have something writ-: 
ten by him each year excepting the year 1854* To- 
gether with these I have accumulated quite an inter- 
esting collection of letters written to Mr* Lincoln or 
about him, and many of these show intimately the 



state of the politics of the time^ 

Accompanying a letter from Mr» Lincoln to J* 
Gillespie, dated May 1 9th, J 849, showing his desire 
for the Commissionership of the General Land Office, 
is the following letter from E^ B» Washburne to 
Caleb B^ Smith, who was later in LincoIn^s cabinet: 

^'Galena, Illinois, May 21, 1849* 

My dear Sir: I beg leave to trouble you again 
for a moment* It is the plan of the Baker (Gen* E* 
D* Baker of Ball Bluff fame) Clique to get Lincoln 
into the commissionership of the General Land Of- 
fice by having Young resign in his favor* I was 
favourable to Lincoln until he proved himself to be 
a mere catspaw and tool of Baker, and until the 
Southern part of the state had got both the Mar- 
shall and Dist*, Atty* We think now if anything 
else is coming to this state, the North should have 
it* All the Whig strength is in the North and all the 
offices heretofore have gone down into the locof oco 
region* 

If Baker should succeed in getting Lincoln in, 
it will be a great triumph for him* 

We have got up papers here, Baker^s own 
residence, signed by all our leading Whigs and the 
members of the bar here without distinction of party. 



and our own Bar is only second to the Chicago 
Bar, showing how Butterfield ( Juston B*, who ob- 
tained the position) stands and showing Baker to 
be what he is, a liar and calumniator* 

Truly, Your Friend, 
Horn C* B* Smith* E* B* Washburne/' 

In a letter written to Dr* Benjamin C» Lundy, 
dated Springfield, Illinois, August 5, J 857, Mn Lin- 
coln writes: ^'You will have no trouble to carry 
your county of Putnam, but you are (as I remem- 
ber) part of the Peoria Senatorial District, and that 
is close and questionable, so that you need every 
vote you can get in Putnam/' 

With this letter, showing Lincoln's depend- 
ence upon him to help organize Putnam County for 
the coming struggle, I have one from Dr* Lundy 
to Wendell Phillips, and, illustrating the ever dev- 
eloping history which opens to the collector, it is 
interesting to know that this Dr* Lundy was the 
son of Benjamin Lundy of Baltimore, who, years 
before Garrison and Lovejoy, before Seward and 
Lincoln, ^^took up the cudgel for liberty/' And I can 
not refrain from quoting further from a pathetic trib- 
ute of the Hon* Victor Murdock, who happened 
last year upon the neglected grave of this elder Ben- 



famin Lundy in Magnolia^ Putnam County, Illinois* 
Mr* Murdock writes, ^^Benjamin Lundy did 
not seek to identify himself with a principle through 
a political candidacy; he did not risk his cause to 
the cankering compromises that come with organ- 
ization* He fought alone* In the wilderness he was 
a voice in the slow, patient process of making paths 
straight* Against the accusation of agitation, dema- 
gogue and madman; threatened; brutally assaulted 
once by a slave-trader in Baltimore; always in peril, 
Lundy fought on, travelling from place to place us- 
ually afoot, seeking no fame, asking no favor, as- 
piring to no eloquence save the rude speech by 
which he might burn into the hearts of men a con- 
sciousness of the curse of slavery* 

He was persuasive* And leaving a trail of ab- 
olition newspapers behind him and a little groupe 
of awakened citizens, he passed on, from town to 
town, aflame with the essential conviction of a true 
democrat — the gentle, indomitable belief in the maj- 
ority — of God and one — and at last he came here, 
to the little graveyard, obscure as his grave itself* 
He had no ambition as we know the word* There 
was no white promise on his horizon, only the 
beckoning obscurity he set out from* That engulf- 



ed him finally even to the memory of a nation that 
once knew him well* And twenty years after the 
world drove away from his mound and began to 
forget^ Lincoln, with generations of sorrow shadow- 
ed in his eyes, was writing an emancipation proc- 
lamation for a race/' 

Qiarles Woodberry McLellan* 







J05EPHBEIVJAMIN 



c 



) 



Collecting Lincolniana* 

In common with many thousands of the people 
of the United States^ I am a true lover of Lincoln* 
I can well remember^ as a boy of a few years of 
age, the picture which hung in the sitting room of 
my home; it was a picture of Washington & Lin- 
coln bearing the inscription, ^Washington made, & 
Lincoln saved our Country/' My home town being 
one of the stations on the ^^underground railroad^' 
and one of the strongest abolition towns in the coun- 
try, I heard much about Lincoln and always ad- 
mired the kind face and pleasing personality of the 
martyred president, and as I grew to manhood the 
boyish admiration grew into adoration* 

Up to the time that Nicolay and Hay wrote 
their biography of Abraham Lincoln I had read a 
few biographies of Lincoln and, of course, different 
incidents in the magazines and newspapers, but the 
publication by Nicolay and Hay was hailed with 
great delight for much that was hidden was brought 
out by them* It is certainly true that we cannot study 
the life of a great man unless we study, at the same 
time, the events of the times in which that man lived 
and with which he was connected, and I consider 



that the ten volumes that were published by the 
Century Company, the result of the minds of Lin- 
coln's private secretaries, is a monument to him that 
is greater than any amount of money could form 
by being placed in marble or precious stones* 

Having read in ^^The Century^' from month 
to month the life of Lincoln and of the men with 
whom he was connected, when the last number 
came I re-read all of them and, having taken up the 
law as my profession and acquainted myself with 
the annotations in the text books, it occurred to me 
that I would like to be the possessor of all of the 
books that Nicolay and Hay referred to in their 
foot-notes, for it seemed to me that if they could 
weave such a splendid history by the use of their 
references it would be a pleasure to own such books* 

I thought that I would like to have all of the 
biographies of Lincoln, at least, and I then conclud- 
ed that a hundred volumes would probably be the 
extent of my library* I began the collection in a mod- 
est way and did not correspond with anyone who 
was collecting* While I was endeavoring to procure 
the books that I had noted others became known 
to me and my hundred volumes grew to four, five 
and even six hundred and so on, but my gala day 



came at the close of the year J900^ It was while 
visiting with the genial Frank M» Morris, of Chi- 
cago, in his famous book shop, that he informed me 
that a man by the name of Fish, of Minneapolis, 
had compiled a bibliography of Lincoln books* Upon 
my return home I wrote to the Hon* Daniel Fish 
inquiring concerning his book and out of the good- 
ness of his heart he sent a copy to me and then, for 
the first time, did I learn of the extent of Lincoln- 
iana* If I had known how extensive a complete col- 
lection of Lincolniana would be when I first began 
collecting I am satisfied that I would not have had 
the heart to begin the work* But thus it is that 
where we are not allowed to peer into the future we 
frequently undertake work and carry it to complet- 
ion where we should have been overwhelmed at 
the start had we realized the proportions of our un- 
dertaking. 

My collection of Lincolniana was known local- 
ly and at one time I gave an address on Lincoln 
before one of our schools in which I tendered the 
use of my library to anyone who desired to carry 
on research in that direction* A young man by the 
name of Philip Joseph availed himself of the oppor- 
tunity and delivered an oration entitled ^^The Fame 



of Abraham Lincoln/^ As the paper was well writ- 
ten I had it published and sent a copy to Mr» Fish 
who asked me to send a copy to his good friend 
Judd Stewart; this I did and in that way reached 
the heart and hand of that genial enthusiast* 

The prince of Lincoln collectors passed away 
last summer with the death of Major Lambert* His 
collection cannot be duplicated^ and now Stewart 
stands at the head of the collectors of Lincolniana, 
a place that he well deserves for he has always been 
willing to lend a helping hand to his brother col- 
lectors* Not only has the collection of Lincolniana 
been a pleasure to me but the acquaintance I have 
formed through my hobby is really worth to me 
many fold more than the collection* 

Living in Rock Island County where Lincoln 
was sworn into the service of the United States as 
a volunteer in the Blackhawk War^ & within sight 
of the village made famous by Blackhawk, we feel 
that Rock Island County has had much to do with 
the bringing of fame to Abraham Lincoln* It was 
in this county that the first bridge spanned the Miss- 
issippi and the company building the bridge retain- 
ed Lincoln to help them in their efforts to retain the 
bridge in the suit brought by the river-men* It was 



at Fort Armstrongs in Rock Island County^ where 
Dred Scott, as body-servant of Dr* Emerson, was 
stationed for a number of years, and on account of 
Dred Scott's residence here his test of citizenship 
came before the Supreme Court of the United States* 

There are many now who are interested in the 
collection of Lincolniana and new ones coming to 
the front continually and to such I extend the hand 
of Lincoln fellowship, with my heart in it, knowing 
that what they do will not only be of service to them- 
selves but to the community in which they live, & 
of benefit to their friends* 

In closing I should like to mention all of those 
who have been very kind to me with my hobby 
but I cannot do so for the list would be too long: 
however, I must not close without mentioning a 
few* A better man never lived than Major W* H* 
Lambert, who has now gone to his reward* Judd 
Stewart, I have already mentioned* Hon* Charles 
W* McLellan, of Champlain, New York, was a 
resident of Springfield at the time of the breaking 
out of the war and on account of his leaning toward 
the Confederacy left there and moved south, but is 
now one of the strongest admirers of Lincoln* Hon* 
Daniel Fish, of Minneapolis, I have had the pleas- 



itre of entertaining at my home and have made a 
trip in his company through the Lincoln country* 
And in J* W* Burton^s home in Lake Geneva I 
have been entertained and have had the pleasure of 
seeing his wonderful collection of Lincolniana* 

These were my early friends in the beginning 
of my hobby and I can now count many others 
who are near to me and who have reciprocated the 
favors which they say I have extended to them* 

J* B* Oakleaf* 
Moline, Illinois^ 
J 2^ February I9I3* 



kR 



;9 13^3 



